


Something Unexpected

by justanothersong



Series: Chili Pepper 'Verse [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Not Hunters, F/M, Human Castiel, Literature is Hot, M/M, Professor Castiel, Professor Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:13:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's tenure celebration should have been the best night of his life, but it turns into something completely unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had been one of the best days of Dean Winchester’s life. Two weeks after the tenure decisions had been handed down from the university, a party was thrown in his honor, with a dual purpose: congratulatory, of course, for his newly achieved tenure, and celebratory, in honor of his recently published critical edition of Cat’s Cradle becoming required reading at three different Ivy League universities and becoming sold out on preorder for the second printing.

The university had been kind enough to foot the bill for the affair, and Dean’s friends, family, and colleagues were gathered in one of the larger conference rooms in the Humanities building on campus. Good food and great wine, combined with Dean’s jovial mood, had made the evening a cheerful affair, lasting well into the evening with no sign of stopping. 

Dean’s cell phone rang in the middle of the night’s festivities, and the look of surprise on his face was enough to cause some concern among the gathered revelers.

“Dean? What is it?” Castiel asked, first to break the silence that had come with Dean’s sudden shock.

Hanging up his phone, Dean shook his head, apparently in awe. “It was my lit agent. That short story, the one I submitted to 'Cemetery Dance'?” he said slowly, voice almost shaking. “It’s… it’s being picked up for the new edition of _Best American Short Stories_.”

 

The reaction was immediate, Dean’s colleagues gathering to slap him on the back and offer their congratulations. His parents, standing just nearby and looking only mildly out of place, beamed with their approval, though the significance was somewhat lost on them. Even Sam had managed to arrive straight from the courthouse in a vaguely timely manner, and was there to offer his own congratulations.

It was Castiel whose congratulations caused the most stir. He and Dean hadn’t made their relationship public as yet, at least not at the university. With Dean’s tenure in its early days, their plan had been to ease into it, lest someone realize they had been together years prior and get the wrong idea. But that night, spirits had been running high and someone had brought a bottle of apple ice wine, one of Castiel’s favorites, and Dean seemed to enjoy watching his love indulge for a change. With his father on hand, Dean had stuck to drinking the non-alcoholic O’Doul’s that he had made certain would be there, so that the elder Winchester wouldn’t be self-conscious over it. And in truth, it was fun to see Castiel let loose for a change, watch the pretty pink tint that arose in his cheeks and the way his smiles came easier and more frequently. 

Clearly having crossed the line into tipsy and thrilled at the wonderful news that Dean had received, Castiel reached forward, took the younger man’s face in his hands and placed a solid kiss on his lips. Dean made a quiet noise of surprise before quickly melting into the kiss, his arms easily slipping around Castiel’s waist in a familiar gesture. 

When he realized what he had done, Castiel began to pull away, eyes gone wide in surprise at his own actions, but Dean kept his arms locked tight around the other man’s body.

“Uh-uh, no way are you gettin’ away now,” Dean told him in a low voice, hint of mischief in his eyes. He pulled the mildly inebriated English department chair even closer, returning his congratulatory kiss with gusto, until Jo Harvelle, one of the few faculty members from different departments invited to Dean’s celebration, began howling out catcalls from the corner.

Everyone else seemed entirely unsurprised.

Dean felt as though he were on top of the world; tenure, publication, and acceptance from his colleagues – could it really get any better? He was certain nothing would make the day anything but the best he’d ever experienced.

He had no idea what was waiting for him and Castiel at home.


	2. Chapter 2

It was difficult maneuvering his way into the door of the home he shared with Castiel as they arrived home after the party. Dean found himself laden down with gifts from his colleagues, the leftover bottles of ice wine – two of them, as someone had apparently been feeling extravagant as they ordered – and Castiel, who was stumbling along happily and giggling like a child, weight primarily supported by the man at his side. 

Dean laughed softly to himself; he loved seeing Castiel like this. The straight-laced conservative professor could so easily retreat into his own thoughts, it would often take a lot for Dean to draw him out, and even more to see him laugh and smile. The cool evening air painted twin roses atop the drunken blush to Castiel’s cheeks and his eyes shown brightly in the light of a nearby streetlamp. When he stumbled over his own feet and knocked more heavily into Dean’s side, Castiel let out a snickering laugh, higher-pitched than his usual deep throaty chuckles and impossibly infectious.

“I gotta get you drunk more often, babe,” Dean said through his laughter, words ghosting out before him in puffs of steam in the cold night air. He leaned Castiel against the wrought iron railing and contemplated setting the rest of his load down onto the snowy porch before going in search of his keys.

Before he had a chance to set anything down at all, Castiel was suddenly right up in Dean’s space, pushing his chilled searching fingers into the pockets of Dean’s jeans and giving him a mischievous little grin.

“Only if you promise to take advantage of me when you do,” he breathed out, prettily bowed mouth a hairsbreadth away from Dean’s, before pulling away with the house keys in his hand.

Dean groaned. “Tease,” he said, tapping Castiel lightly in the seat of his dark dress pants with the toe of his boot, arms still too full to goose the other man properly.

Castiel only laughed, and fumbled open the door.

 

They didn’t notice it, not at first. It was late, they were both tired, and with Castiel dancing on the far side of tipsy, each had their attention pulled away from something as simple as the state of their house. The scent of leather and books in the air made them both smile gently as Dean began to unload his burdens on the coffee table and Castiel made a wide arcing turn to hang his coat and scarf in the front hall closet while Dean deposited his burdens on the coffee table.

“We should probably…” Dean started, picking up a bottle of the wine once again on an afterthought. He turned to finish his sentence and froze, eyes going just a little bit wider as a slow murmur from the kitchen caught his ears. “Cas?” he asked quietly.

The other man had noticed too, suddenly feeling more sober than he had been just moments before. He glanced at Dean and nodded, reaching into the umbrella stand for the baseball bat that Dean always kept there. Together then inched quietly towards the kitchen, where a soft glow from a light that should not have been on was pouring out onto the hardwood floor of the dining room just beyond. Dean had turned the bottle of wine in his hand, brandishing it like a weapon if need be.

When the reached the kitchen doorway, Castiel let out a short gasp but raised a hand to still Dean, who had followed just on his heels. Dean didn’t know quite how to react; there were two strangers sitting at his kitchen table, and his first inclination would have been to smash the bottle of Castiel’s new favorite wine upside the head of the male of the two, but for some reason Cas wanted him to hold back.

The man at the table seemed smaller in stature than Dean himself, with honey colored hair curling just under his ears – too long, and a little too much like Sam’s for Dean’s liking. He had a long pointed nose and was wearing a smirk that Dean very much wanted to punch off of his face. The girl, though, was another story entirely.

She was young, perhaps early twenties at the most, with long straight dark hair pulled back from her face. She was dressed conservatively, in what looked like a denim pinafore and white turtleneck beneath a soft baby blue sweater. What really struck Dean was her eyes, so startlingly familiar that it caught his breath in his throat: big, blue, and beautiful. Just like Castiel’s.

Her pale pretty face suddenly twisted into an ugly glare.  
“I should have known this wasn’t really your home, Gabriel,” she said angrily. “There were too many books for it to be yours.”

The man at her side let out a low whistle.  
“Low blow, cuz,” he said, shaking his head. When the girl made as though she would stand, he pressed a gently hand to her shoulder. “Sit, Hael. Just let’s have a chat here.”

Castiel cleared his throat. “Hello Gabriel,” he said, then turned his gaze to the girl. “Haely,” he added, tone softer. Dean could see hurt in Castiel’s eyes, but didn’t know what to say.

Gabriel grinned. “Hey baby brother, thought it was time for a little family reunion!”


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel stood frozen to the spot, feet rooted to the ceramic tiled floor of their kitchen. He seemed physically unable to think or speak, and Dean didn’t feel that he was much better himself. There was little said in their home about Castiel’s family; Dean knew some of the story, that when Castiel had first begun struggling with his sexuality as a teenager, he had been caught with a boy from his strict Christian fundamentalist school and both had been expelled. Things had been even worse for Castiel at home, and as an adult he kept little contact with anyone.

Until now, apparently.

“How could you bring me here, Gabriel?” the girl said in a low, angry voice. “It was bad enough when Castiel left home but now you bring me to where he lives with this… with this…”

“You are in my home, Hael,” Castiel said quiet suddenly, voice as expressionless as his face had become. “If you insult either me or my partner, you’ll wear out your welcome quickly.”

“C’mon, baby bro, let’s everybody take a chill pill,” Gabriel spoke up evenly. He looked oddly somber and sedate for a long moment, before a grin that Dean guessed was something of a trademark for the man split on his face. He stood and walked towards Dean, sizing him up, even though he was several inches shorter and smaller framed than the young professor. “So you must be the famous Dean Winchester,” he said loudly, and offered his hand for Dean to shake. “Nice to meet he guy that finally dragged Cas out of the closet for good.”

“Gabriel!” Castiel groaned, pinching the bridge of his noise. He was wishing he hadn’t drank so much wine that night; the fun, cheerful effect the alcohol had inspired in him had all but worn away, leaving only tiredness now and the beginnings of what promised to be a raging headache. “Please don’t… just… don’t.”

Dean shook the offered hand, eyeing the shorter man skeptically. “So you’re the other outcast, huh?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. 

Gabriel grinned. “That’s me,” he agreed cheerfully. He turned and opened the refrigerator, retrieving a bottle of beer and popping the cap off on the kitchen counter. He loped around the kitchen table, resuming his seat next to the girl with a sigh, and took a long pull on the beer before speaking. “I committed the grand offense of not being a missionary and cramming the Bible down some poor village’s throats.”

With a sigh, Dean deposited his weaponized wine bottle in the refrigerator and retrieved a beer of his own, turning to brace himself against the counter. “So what, you don’t sign for a trip to No Man’s Land and it gets you booted out?”

“Not quite, Dean-o,” Gabriel responded, taking another drink of his beer. “Dear sweet Auntie Naomi put me through med school so I could go be a doctor without borders, with the restriction of fixing cleft palates on kids who got baptized or some shit. But after my internship, I figured a few things out on my own that made it a little hard to swallow Naomi’s bullshit.”

“As if you ever had any intention of taking up a ministry!” Hael spat out, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know how you were able to fool Mother at all, everyone else saw right through you, Gabriel.”

“Can’t say it would surprise me if they did,” Dead admitted with a nod. He popped the cap on his beer in much the same way Gabriel had against the counter and drained half of it in one go. The euphoria from earlier in the evening had faded the moment he and Castiel discovered the strange pair sitting at the kitchen table, and he was getting the distinct impression that he’d much prefer to have a little more alcohol in his system to deal with whatever hell they had brought with them.

“Whoa, low blow!” Gabriel said in mock offense, patting a hand to his chest as if to protect his heart. “Nice guy you got here Cas, insulting your only loyal brother after just meeting him, how rude. I like him.” Dean snorted into his beer, shaking his head, but Castiel seemed only more agitated.

“Gabriel, I need to speak with you in the next room, please,” Castiel said in a short, clipped tone. Dean gave a soft sigh at the words; all the joy and frivolity that Castiel had been so awash in just moments before had completely dissipated.

Gabriel arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Uh, you sure you wanna leave the boy-toy alone with Crazy McBiblepants over there?”

Castiel huffed angrily and pulled his brother from his chair by the sleeve of his tailored blue dress shirt, tugging him towards the archway that led into the living room.

“Alright, alright, I’m going!” Gabriel cried out. “Easy on the threads there, bro!”

 

Realizing he had been left alone with the angry young girl seated at his kitchen table, Dean glanced towards her, only to received a glare in return. He shook his head, swallowing down the rest of his beer and moving to put the empty bottle into the kitchen sink. Cas would give him hell if he dared drop it in the recycling bin without rinsing, but it seemed crass to engage in such domestic tasks while his pissed-off homophobic cousin-in-law sat scowling at the table.

“Uh, can I get you anything? Coffee or…?” he offered.

The girl frowned. “I’d just as soon you not address me at all, thank you,” she responded quickly.

Dean let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Can’t say I didn’t try,” he replied, and decided to go ahead and rinse the bottle after all. Social niceties weren’t worth a damn to the kid after all, it seemed, so there was no harm in getting it done sooner rather than later.

He rinsed the glass bottle, pouring the water out slowly and watching it circle its way down the drain before dropping it with a loud clink into the recycle bin they kept in the cabinet below the sink. Dean sighed, wiping his hands on the seat of his pants before remembering he was still in his nicer clothes; he had worn a suit to the party, though he had lost the jacket in the living room before he and Castiel had noticed something amiss in their home. He sighed again, shook his head, and turned to face their visitor once again.

Hael stared at him with a pinched expression before sighing herself.  
“Look, I know that you probably mean well, and I’m sure you have no idea what a wretched abomination you are or how far you’ve led Castiel astray, so I should tell you I appreciate the kindness you are attempting, I just choose not to accept it.”

Dean blinked rapidly several times; she spoke with the same overly verbose and formal mannerism that Castiel occasionally affected, mostly when he was stressed, but it didn’t give her leave to insult him in his own home.

“Wretched abomination, huh?” he asked, making his way to the table. He pulled out the wooden chair that sat across from the girl and flipped it around backwards, seating himself with his arms folded over the back of it. “I guess in your twisted head, that makes sense. But I don’t see how I ‘led’ Cas anywhere. Man’s got his own mind, kid. Couldn’t convince him to do anything he didn’t want to do in the first place.”

Hael snorted. “Castiel may have left our family home and turned his back on my mother and our beliefs, but it didn’t mean he would have to live a life of sin. He did well to keep himself out of trouble, before you.”

Dean couldn’t help himself; he barked out a laugh. “You tryin’ to tell me I… what, I converted him or something?”

Hael glared, and opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted as her older cousins shuffled back into the room, Castiel pushing Gabriel into the room with one hand while loosening his tie with the other.

“Now that Gabriel has promise to be on his best behavior,” Castiel began.

“Like I’m a kindergartner or something, seriously Cas? I am the older brother here, damn it!” Gabriel interrupted; Castiel only sent an icy blue glare in his direction, ignoring his words entirely.

“Now that’s settled, will someone please explain to me what you two are doing here?” Castiel went on.

Gabriel nodded, and his jovial, teasing expression dropped into something more serious. “Hey kiddo, why don’t you stand up and show Cassie what kind of trouble you got yourself into.”

The girl squeezed her eyes shut, and her head dropped in what looked to be shame, and something else entirely. If Dean didn’t know better, he might have thought it was grief; but that wouldn’t make sense at all. She pressed both palms to the tabletop to steady herself and stood up slowly, so slowly that it wasn’t until she was fully on her feet that Dean understood.  
Hael was a petite girl, who bore a striking resemblance to Castiel in features and coloring, but where he had lean muscle and height, she had a diminutive stature and a thin, willowy figure – at least, it seemed she once had. Her shoulders were slight and her arms slender, her waist still seeming small, but it was all eclipsed by the hugely burgeoning and clearly heavily pregnant belly jutting out before her.

Castiel let out a surprised gasp even while Dean stared on, wide-eyed; it seemed to break the girl’s resolve, and Dean felt a surprising rush of sympathy as her face crumpled, she pressed her small hands to her mouth, and began to cry.


	4. Chapter 4

When a crisis arose, whether it be his own family or someone else’s, Dean tended to slip into the same automated mode of circling the wagons, keeping everyone safe and close. This usually came about in his putting on coffee or, in the case of his almost in-laws’ sudden visit, the tea kettle. He gave the girl some of Castiel’s decaffeinated green tea and put a small plastic lemon filled with the same fruit’s juice on the table beside her, along with a spoon, sugar, and a small jar of powdered creamer, because it was still two days before they were to go grocery shopping and they were already out of milk.

To Castiel, Dean gave peppermint tea made from his own stash, two tea bags in the cup because Cas liked it strong and claimed it helped him to de-stress. He drank it plain, but Dean gave him a spoon anyway, because he knew Cas tended to stir and press the tea bags against the side of the cups in a nervous gesture. 

Making a judgment call, he simply handed Gabriel another beer. The shorter man smiled and tipped his bottle towards Dean in a gesture of thanks, then turned his attentions back to his brother.

“Nice little house husband you got there, Cassie,” Gabriel announced with a smirk.

His younger brother glared in response. “God damn it, Gabriel, enough already!” Castiel snapped in response. “Tell me what is going on. Tell me why you’re here.” Standing silently behind him, Dean put a hand on Castiel’s shoulder to calm him; the other man reached up and covered it with his own, giving it a gentle squeeze.

With a sympathetic glance towards Hael, who was seated again but still crying quietly, Gabriel sighed. “I needed your help on this, man. Look, me and Kali, we’re not the nurturing type, okay? Haely showed up on my doorstep like this and I couldn’t think of where else to go.”

“In Phoenix?” Castiel asked in surprise. When Gabriel had taken off on his own after his graduation from medical school, he had relocated to the southwest and kept little contact with the rest of the family in Utah; it was a wonder that Hael had even known where he lived.

“Seems like our little Hael was so gung-ho about spreading her mother’s religion that she didn’t even bother with college, jumped right into a mission trip to… where was it, kiddo? Peru or something?” Gabriel asked.

The girl sniffed. “Bolivia,” she corrected, then looked up to glare at him with red-rimmed eyes. “And I wanted to go to college, Gabriel. I wanted to study math. But after your… your betrayal, mother wouldn’t allow it.”

Dean let out a low whistle. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, shaking his head; Castiel patted his hand in response.

“This happened in Bolivia, I take it?” he asked gently, nodding towards Hael as if to gesture towards her delicate condition. The girl’s face colored in shame and she dropped her gaze once again.

Gabriel gave another sigh, brow knit in concern; for all of his deflecting, he seemed to honestly care about the girl, and it shown on his face, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

“From what I gather, there was a boy on the trip from another church. You know how it goes, Cas. Cloistered boy meets cloistered girl, no parental units around to shame them from acting natural, they go buck wild,” Gabriel told him. “Guess they were making plans to stay down south, start a church for the locals.”

“Alfie would have made a good minister,” Hael said softly, still not looking up. She stirred half a teaspoon of sugar into her tea and took a sip, holding the mug in her hands even after she had finished, as though she meant to warm her fingers.

“Alfie, right,” Gabriel said, nodding. He had heard the tale only hours before but details had never been his strong suit.

“What happened to this Alfie?” Castiel asked, eyes narrowed. There was the look of a protective big brother ghosting across his features, and Dean had the distinct impression that Cas had done his best to look out for the child when she was young and he hadn’t been turned out by the family.

“Turn’s out the kid’s parents were the crazy no-drugs-God’ll-heal-us types,” Gabriel replied, and Castiel winced in response. “Didn’t get his travel vaccs, turns up sick a few months after the two were gettin’ Biblical. Wouldn’t even let the mission doctors treat him until he was delirious and Hael screamed for’em to help. Kid didn’t make it.”

“Oh Christ,” Castiel said, shaking his head. He reached out across the table and touched a hand to Hael’s where she still clutched at her mug of tea; she only jerked away.

“Next thing I know, Hael’s crying on my doorstep and Kali is having a major freak out,” Gabriel went on. 

Part of Gabriel’s disownment from the family stemmed from his choice in bride. He had married a woman he met during his plastic surgery internship, a beautiful doctor from Panaji named Kali. So far as Castiel knew – as he hadn’t gotten to know her very well during their few and far between meetings after his own ousting from the family – she wasn’t necessarily devout but still took her Hindu roots somewhat seriously. He could only imagine how things must have gone, with a very pregnant and very Christian girl showing up on her doorstep, no doubt spouting off about the other’s doctrine.

“So you brought her here?” Dean asked. He had heard all about Gabriel and his wife from Castiel, and could easily guess how her meeting with Hael might have gone. “No offense, buddy, but that’s kind of out of the frying pan, into the fire, from this kid’s perspective.”

“Funny,” Gabriel said, nodding. He took a long pull on his beer and turned back to Castiel. “He’s funny. I like it. But back to our little fairy tale, at the part where our reluctant heroes show up.”

“I don’t see how Dean and I can be of any help to Hael, Gabriel,” Castiel replied. “We can give her a place to stay for a few days, but I doubt she’ll consent to staying under this roof. Beyond that… there’s certainly nothing you or I can do or say that will make this alright. There’s no way Aunt Naomi will take her back home after this, much less with a child.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Hael finally spoke again, voice small and tired. She glanced up, eyes meeting Castiel’s full on for the first tome since they had arrived to find her there. “I don’t know what to do,” she repeated. “This… thing… inside me, it’s my punishment. Mine and Alfie’s, for what we did. I cannot go home until it’s gone. I thought Gabriel would help me but if he won’t, then… Castiel. If ever your family meant anything to you, you must help me. Please. I’m begging.”

“I don’t know what you want from me, Haely,” Castiel replied with a tired sigh. “You’re well past the point of any medical intervention, and… oh. Oh. Hael, have you even been to a doctor?”

The girl looked at him incredulously. “I’ve only been back in the country for three days, Castiel, I was out in the most rural points we could find to begin our ministry. And besides. I wasn’t about to share this shame with anyone else.”

“And in three days time you didn’t think to get even a checkup?!” Dean asked, incredulous. 

Hael turned and glared at him. “And have my mother receive an insurance bill noting obstetric care? Are you insane? She’d disown me in an instant.”

“Your trust fund,” Castiel said, shaking his head. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? I told you my aunt was wealthy, Dean. Her children have trust funds that their father set up before he died. Even with the way the market has been, it has to be, what? A couple of million now? Hael won’t be allowed to touch it until her twentieth birthday. Four months’ time now.”

“Do you think that is all I care about?” the girl spat out, standing up as quickly as her legs would allow. She threw the mug in her hands to the ground, ignoring the lukewarm splash of tea against her ankles, and balled her hands into tight fists at her side. “I _need_ to go home, Castiel. I have nothing else left in this world but my home. And I surely can’t arrive with a bastard child in tow, now can I? In mother’s eyes, a sin is a sin, no matter how pure the intent, and she can never know about this.” 

 

She was shaking, eyes flitting back and forth from each of her disowned cousins, body trembling with the stress and the overwhelming emotions she was feeling. Gabriel and Castiel stood, both staring at her with wide eyes, and Dean took a step forward, hands reaching out.

“Hey, hey… it’s okay, just… just sit down, okay?” he said, and though she flinched away at first, she allowed him to take her by the hand and guide her back into the chair she had pushed out when she stood. The dampness on her legs, soaked through her plain white tights, was beginning to irritate her, and she felt terribly tired.

“Hael… are you alright? How do you feel?” Castiel asked slowly. Gabriel didn’t speak but moved towards the laundry room, something Dean noted with a frown; clearly the other man had taken his time in poking around their home before he and Castiel had arrived.

“I’m fine!” she snapped, crying again.

Gabriel returned with several clean towels and a blanket, presumably from the linen closet.   
“Here, Haely, clean yourself up,” he said softly. He flicked his glance towards Dean, and nodded at the back door. “Can you go warm up the car for our girl here? Not that sporty thing you showed up in, the sensible electric thing I know my brother has to have in the garage.” Dean nodded and headed towards the garage door. 

“These are too many towels for a cup of tea,” Hael said, sounded very tired and very confused.

“It’s not tea, sweetheart,” Gabriel said, voice returning to the soft congenial tone he had used with her only moments before. “Your water broke.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean never really knew how long it took for a woman to have a baby – difficult as it was for him to think of that slip of a girl as a woman. In the movies, it was always over in a matter of minutes. The water would break and the woman in question would be rushed off to the hospital, occasionally giving birth in a taxi or an ambulance stuck in traffic, depending on the dramatic tone to the situation. But he had never known the reality of it, too young to really understand what was happening when his mother went in to deliver Sammy, and never having much call to research it in the past.

So he found it at least a little surprising to be sitting in an uncomfortable waiting room chair and watching the sun rise; Hael wasn’t even in what Gabriel had termed ‘hard labor’ yet, and the doctors were hesitant to do anything to speed her along while they scurried about to check on the well-being of the baby, since the mother-to-be hadn’t sought any medical help during her pregnancy. Gabriel didn’t have privileges at the hospital but was apparently well known in enough circles that they looked the other way as he went over charts and ordered tests; a nurse had confided quietly to Dean and Castiel that she had been on standby for a trip to care for a young Afghani girl who had been burned with acid by her father that Gabriel had apparently spearheaded. It seemed that there was more to Castiel’s brother than he had known or related to Dean after all.

Castiel stayed near enough to Hael to constantly fret and worry, smoothing her hair away from her face and feeding her ice chips when she allowed him close, standing resolute and quiet when she would get angry and spew more of her hateful vitriol into the air. Gabriel was in and out of the room, consulting with other doctors and peering at charts and lab results. For his part, Dean was staying out of the way, but near enough to be close by if Castiel needed him.

He went on coffee runs, bringing back boiling hot cups of the stuff from the hospital cafeteria; they had realized early on the night before that the vending machine down the hall only dispensed lukewarm flavorless brown water, and Dean took it upon himself to get the good stuff from a few floors below. Both Castiel and Gabriel seemed grateful for it, though Hael only glared.

Dean preferred to think she was angry that she wasn’t being allowed anything besides her ice chips, and not just generally pissed off at his presence.

 

He went for doughnuts a little past ten, when he knew the others must be getting hungry, and a soft-spoken obstetrician, a petite blonde with ‘Layla Rourke, MD’ embroidered in green on her lab coat, had politely asked that ‘the gentleman’ clear the room so that she could examine her patient. Castiel and Gabriel had obliged, glad to find pastries waiting for them in the small seating area directly across from what had been termed Hael’s ‘birthing suite’.

“The bed will convert, when it’s time,” Gabriel explained, mouth full of jelly doughnut and powdered sugar on his lips. “So they don’t have to go wheeling her all around and whatnot, just pop the kiddo out right then and there, clean it up and snap the bed back into place for Hael to relax afterwards.”

“Seems… convenient,” Castiel commented mildly, picking apart a French cruller but not really eating anything.

“And how,” Gabriel replied, nodding even as he reached for another jelly doughnut. “They don’t have to be flippin’ people in and out of beds and wheeling down halls anymore, everything happens in one room. Gives the mothers some little bit of comfort, I guess.”

Castiel sighed and rubbed at his eyes, wide and blue and bloodshot after a night perched at his young cousin’s bedside.

“I suppose we should be calling a social worker, or someone,” he said through a stifled yawn. He sighed and added, “I don’t think there will be any convincing her to keep the baby.”  
Gabriel held his hands up. “Don’t ask me,” he replied quickly. “That part of this whole thing is a little over my head. I’m just here for moral support, and to make sure the quacks in this joint are up to snuff.”

Castiel snorted. “Of course you are.”

“I know someone we can call,” Dean interjected, nudging Castiel with his elbow. He had been listening to the exchanging, watching the expressions crossing Castiel’s face with interest and with worry. They hadn’t had even a moment to discuss what was happening; Castiel didn’t speak much about his family, the past a little too raw for him to dredge up, and Dean had always respected that. Now, thrust headlong into a family crisis, he could only hope to keep their heads above water.

Castiel gave him a grateful look, and patted his hand on the tabletop. “Thank you, Dean,” he said softly, more feeling in those few words than he had expressed all morning.

Dean gave him a tired smile in response, reaching to press a small pill case into Castiel’s hand. He had stopped off at the car during one of his many coffee runs, grabbing the little emergency pill case that Castiel kept in the glovebox and bringing it back with him. They never really spoke on it much, but Dean knew that Castiel took a very mild anti-anxiety medication and that missing a dose tended to make him rather ill. 

Castiel sighed again, tired but pleased, and knelt to rest his forehead against Dean’s, closing his hand around the other man’s and the pill case he had passed along. He closed his eyes and stayed there a long moment, relaxing when he felt Dean’s free hand reach up to cup his cheek.

“What would I ever do without you?” Castiel murmured softly, while Gabriel did his best to avert his eyes from what he realized was a very private moment.

“Well, for starters, you still wouldn’t know how to program your DVR,” Dean offered with a smirk, and Castiel laughed, long and hard and deep, and Dean couldn’t help but chuckle in response.

 

Dr. Rourke stepped into the room, clearing her throat softly to draw their attention. Dean and Castiel pulled apart with some reluctance and turned to face her, Gabriel already leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest and an expectant look on his face.

“She’s doing fine,” Dr. Rourke told them with a smile. “Hael’s cervix has dilated to about four centimeters and she’s already in active labor, contractions coming steadily. She did refuse any pain management early on but she’s handling it beautifully. Our only course of action now is to wait for things to progress.”

Gabriel frowned. “Only four centimeters?” he asked. “For active labor?”

The doctor nodded. “That is a concern,” she agreed, “But as this is Hael’s first child, it’s not too unusual. We’ll continue to check as her contractions increase and if necessary we can administer some Pitocin to move things along. For now, I’d like to wait and give our girl a chance to do it on her own.”

“Thanks, doctor,” Gabriel replied with a nod, seemingly satisfied. Dr. Rourke gave them another smile and a nod before heading back towards the nurse’s station; Castiel seemed relieved, seeing his brother’s agreement with the doctor’s plan of action, and Dean let out his own sigh of relief. “Why don’t you guys hang out in here for a few?” Gabriel told them, standing up. He brushed sugar from his hands and mouth and tossed back the last of his coffee. “I’ll go talk to Hael, see how she’s doing. Cassie, man, you need some time to decompress, bro. You’re looking like hell.”

Castiel opened his mouth to protest but, feeling Dean squeeze his hand, he heaved a sigh and settled back into his chair.

“I suppose,” he agreed, still frowning. Gabriel nodded and left the room, heading right back to his young cousin’s bedside.

Dean stood and tugged at Castiel where their hands were joined. “Hey, come on,” he said quietly, pulling the other man to his feet. “These chairs suck, the couch is better. Come sit with me.”

Castiel nodded but stood slowly, tired and probably overwrought. He paused to take his pill, swallowing it down with coffee gone cool from sitting untouched on the table, then followed Dean with a heavy step to an ugly green corduroy couch tucked alongside the back wall of the waiting room. Dean sat first and Castiel sidled up next to him, just as the other man knew he would. With an arm thrown over his shoulder, Dean pulled Castiel close and let him rest his back against Dean’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel said, letting his eyes fall closed. “This was your big night and it was ruined by all of this madness from my family… I’m so sorry.”

Dean chuckled softly, the vibrations of it making Castiel shiver against his chest. “Hey, are you kidding?” he said. “All of the crap you’ve put up with from my family? If it’s not my mom on the phone asking when you’re gonna make an honest man outta me, it’s my gigantic brother snoring like a sasquatch on the couch or my old man callin’ to tell us one of his poker buddies has a lesbian daughter and do we know anyone we can fix her up with.”

Castiel couldn’t help but laugh; Dean’s family was indeed a handful, but all of their actions made it clear how much they loved Dean, and Castiel by extension. He was always happy to take a phone call or a visit, even if it meant being grilled by Dean’s former police officer mother, Mary, who could be frankly terrifying in her assertions that she didn’t care who was wearing white or what aisle they were walking along, just so long as one of them did it and made it legal so she could have a nice new photo for her mantelpiece. 

Even when it was Sam, Dean’s younger brother, having a bad night and looking for someone to talk him down from going out and looking for something to take the edge off, Castiel was happy to help. The Winchesters were kind people who, in spite of their problems, loved and needed one another a great deal. He considered it something of an honor that they chose to include him.

His own family’s baggage, however, was a lot more difficult and painful to navigate.

“Hael came as something of a surprise to all of us, not the least so much as Aunt Naomi,” Castiel spoke quietly. Dean laced their fingers together but didn’t speak, knowing that Castiel needed to explain some of what was happening, if only for his own piece of mind. 

“Naomi’s second marriage was to a televangelist by the name of Buddy Boyle,” he went on. “I don’t believe either of them expected any children to come of it, but Hael was born when I was still in high school. Buddy died not long after, and I suppose we all took it upon ourselves to look after her. Oh, Dean, she was such a sweet little girl. So bright, always so happy. Broke my heart leaving her behind more than anyone else, really.”

“Seems to have done about the same to her,” Dean commented mildly. He had noticed the hurt flashing in Hael’s eyes, there alongside what she must believe to be righteous anger. He understood that, remembering how angry and broken he had felt, when his father had left the family for a time in his youth. If Hael’s father hadn’t been around, and she’d only had her cousins doting on her… Yes, he could see that. She would feel abandoned, when Castiel broke from the flock.

“I kept in touch, for a time,” Castiel explained, sighing heavily. “As much as I could. Letters routed through siblings and neighbors. And Haely wrote back. But as she got older… well. She started sounding less like the little girl I knew and more like her mother. After a while, I just stopped trying. I should have…”

“Don’t,” Dean said, shaking his head. “This isn’t on you, Cas. It’s not. Her mom warped her head, it’s no wonder she’d get herself into this kind of trouble once she got a little freedom. Staying there would have killed you, baby. You did the right thing in leavin’ and I thank god that you did. Otherwise, I’d never’ve found you.”

Castiel sighed again, and let himself relax more against Dean. “I don’t know anymore if there is a god,” he confided quietly. “One thing I do know, if there is one… he led me to you. Wouldn’t have lasted without you.”


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel was drifting. Dean could tell, in the way his body relaxed against Dean’s chest, and the way his breathing was becoming calm and even. There was no fault in it; they had both been up for more than a day straight by then, and Castiel was clearly overwrought with the trauma his family’s past and present troubles were inflicting. With Gabriel tending to Hael and time to spend, he decided to let the other man rest for as long as he could. Castiel himself seemed to sense himself falling, and moved to sit up with a groan.

“Oh no you don’t,” Dean said, and snaked an arm around Castiel’s waist, pulling him back against his chest, leaning further back himself against the arm of the couch.

“Dean, I have to go check on Hael,” Castiel bristled, struggling to sit up.

“C’mon, Cas, she’s okay,” Dean replied. “You need to take a few minutes here, man, or you’re not gonna make it through the day. Put your feet up, kick back. Just a little while.”

Castiel huffed but made no move to sit up again, relaxing into Dean’s embrace as the other man pulled him back again. Satisfied that Castiel wouldn’t try to escape again, Dean relaxed the grip on his waist and reached up to start playing with his hair, earning a deep-seated sigh for his trouble.

 

Inwardly, he marveled at it. Dean could remember a time in his life when this sort of thing would have been completely unthinkable; not because Castiel was a man, no, but because it was real. It was affection. It was love. And he was letting himself have that, letting himself love, so freely and openly, and not caring what others thought or what they saw. He had believed when he was young that everything should remain bottled up inside, and even though he still had a hard time with it on occasion, kept things to himself longer than he really should have, he had learned that there was nothing wrong with allowing the rest of the world a peek inside 

He remembered with startling clarity the day his father finally came home for good, the day that Dean learned that keeping it all inside was the sure way to finally break. He had been a teenager then, all bravado and charm, seemingly shallow and worth little more than the smiles he flashed at pretty faces that passed him by. He’d come home from another night out with friends, the taste of beer still lingering on his lips, to find his father seated at the kitchen table, sobbing into his hands while Dean’s mother held him from behind, face buried in her husband’s hair even as she shook with tears.

This is what it was to finally break, Dean realized. This is what happened when everything pushed so deep down inside spilled out, breaking through all the barriers put up over the years. John Winchester had spent more of his marriage sleeping on friend’s couches or in the backseat of his car than he had in his own bed, spilling his pain into shots of cheap whiskey until it all began to overflow and there was no one willing to clean up the mess: he had to do it himself, and the first step was going home.

Dean had changed that day, though few noticed it at first. He stopped hiding, stopped caring what others thought. He held a lot close to his vest still – it was just his way, there was no changing that – but he made sure those he loved knew it, and actually started believing he was worthy of their love in return. He still had his hiccups, moments when the little boy afraid of what others thought about him, certain he wasn’t worth their time, surfaced, but for the most part, Dean Winchester was a whole new man.

It served him well, and it helped Castiel move away from his own self-loathing after a time.

Dean smiled to himself, nuzzled against Castiel’s hair, breathing in the clean scent of the shampoo they shared, feeling that little shiver of excitement that always came when he thought of the way their lives were so indelibly intertwined. 

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,” Dean whispered softly, voice just loud enough for Castiel to hear. “He grazes among the lilies.” He paused, listening to the soft hitch in Castiel’s breath, before adding, “You are beautiful, my darling.”*

Castiel groaned. “Biblical poetry is not fair, Dean,” he grumbled softly. “Not outside of our bed. That’s the rule, remember?”

Dean chuckled. “Okay, okay,” he agreed, and pressed a kiss to Castiel’s temple. “You close your eyes and relax a little, and I’ll play fair. Deal?”

With a sigh and a rustling of shoulders to get comfortable, Castiel closed his eyes and turned his head, so that he laid against Dean’s chest, his head fitted beneath Dean’s chin. 

“I suppose,” he grumbled, and let loose a softer, more relaxed sigh.

Dean resumed running his fingers through Castiel’s messy dark hair, and smiled to himself. He had read a novel once where each soul’s personal heaven was comprised of favorite moments spent on earth; he was certain this one would make his heaven.

“I fear no fate, for you are my fate, my sweet,” he whispered, voice dropped in tone, perhaps a little huskier than the norm. “I want no world, for beautiful, _you_ are my world, my true.”**

“Cummings. Nice,” Castiel mumbled. “But you skipped the first verse.”

“Quiet, you,” Dean gently chided. “You’re supposed to be relaxing. No talking.”

“Mmm,” Castiel responded. “If you insist.”

“You are whatever a moon has always meant,” Dean told him softly. “And whatever a sun will always sing, is you.” He didn’t even need to begin the next stanza; Castiel was sound asleep.

 

The noises of the hospital drifted in and out of the little waiting room, but no one came to bother them. Gabriel had busied himself with Hael’s charts and vital signs, energized by too much coffee and way too much sugar, ready to go another twelve hours without so much as a break. Dean could hear the quiet symphony of beeps and buzzes filtering in from patient rooms and nursing stations, and once in a while the first few notes of Brahm’s Lullaby would play over the hospital’s loudspeakers, signaling that another new life had been brought into the world.

Dean amused himself by playing with Castiel’s hair as the other man snoozed, making it even more messy than it usually was, letting the dark locks glide through his fingers and leaving them to stick out at odd angles, as though he had just rolled out of bed. 

He reached out and brushed a stray eyelash from Castiel’s cheek, watching the soft flutter of his eyes and the gentle frown that graced his features for just a second at the touch. All it took was Dean running his fingers down the side of Castiel’s cheek to quiet him again, the barest ghost of a smile passing Castiel’s plush lips from the feel of it.

The thought came to Dean with startling clarity, and he knew it was true the moment it passed his mind. This was his whole world, right here, wrapped up in his arms.

And it was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Song of Solomon, 6:3-4
> 
> ** "I Carry Your Heart With Me", ee cummings


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter contains a very brief and very sparsely detailed mention of the physical abuse of a child. I'm not tagging the fic with it, as it is not a major facet of the story, but I wanted to make a note here so that those who might be triggered could avoid it.

Gabriel swanned back into the waiting room after a time, the cardboard stick of a lollipop pilfered from the nurse’s station jutting from his mouth, wearing a borrowed lab coat that looked to be three sizes too large for his slight stature. Dean barely paid him notice, close to sleep himself as Castiel slumbered on in his arms. It wasn’t until the other man began to speak that Dean even looked up.

“You’re good for him, you know that?” Gabriel said, voice kept level and quiet as not to wake his younger brother. All the jest and playfulness that had been his usual manner since Dean had so abruptly made his acquaintance had slipped away, leaving an honest and open expression on the doctor’s face, full of concern and care for his family.

“I think it’s a mutual thing,” Dean replied quietly. Castiel drew a deep breath in his sleep and turned his face to press against the soft fabric of the dress shirt Dean had worn to the party the night before, eons ago as it seemed.

“I’m serious, kid,” Gabriel replied. He’d taken his place in one of the uncomfortable chairs across the room and leaned forward, hands steepled, elbows resting upon his knees. “Cassie was so tightly wound, I kept thinkin’ I was going to turn on the news and see him up in a clock-tower somewhere with an AR-15. Or just ready to jump.”

Dean couldn’t help the glare he sent towards Castiel’s brother. “And you did so much to help him out, right?”

“Hey, I’m no saint,” Gabriel told him, hands up in mock surrender. “God knows I had my own shit to work out. Far as I know, we’re the only ones who got outta that viper nest we call a family and damned if we weren’t both fucked up in the head by the time we did.”

Dean frowned but said nothing, sensing that Gabriel wanted to talk right then more than he wanted to listen.

“By the time I heard he’d bailed out, I figured Cassie would be closeted for life. And yeah, I did try and talk to him, man, but you gotta know how stubborn he can be when he wants to, digs his heels in and won’t budge,” Gabriel said with a sigh. He leaned back again in his chair and downed half a cup of cold coffee before shaking his head and turning to look at Dean and his sleeping brother once more. “You get someone telling you that you’re wrong inside, that you’re broken, for so long, you start believing it, no matter what anybody else tries to tell you.”

Dean breathed a deep sigh of his own, glancing down at the sleeping man in his arms. He remembered that version of Castiel all too well, brilliant and beautiful but so utterly broken down. When he would think about the different ways his own life could have gone, all of the different roads he could have traveled, the one thing that stuck out most to Dean was that he might not have been there to find Cas when he needed someone.

The thought alone was enough to keep him up some nights, sick with the thought of what could have been, but thankfully never was.

“Now me, I got my freedom and never looked back, raised a little hell here and there, did all the things they told me would set me up for brimstone in the long run,” Gabriel explained, snorting a laugh at the memories of his own misspent youth. “Ended up marrying a girl named for a goddess of the polytheistic faith she practices, making more money than god and spending it all on ourselves. The stuff of Naomi’s nightmares. But Cassie… hell, if I could’ve figured a way to take him with me from the start, I’d have done it. Naomi stomped down on him the hardest cos I think she knew he had the potential to be something great.”

“From what I hear, she should’ve had her boot down on you too, if that’s the case,” Dean responded, keeping his voice low and measured, as not to wake Castiel. 

Gabriel shrugged. “I’m okay, I guess,” he relented. “Doesn’t make this fucked up situation any better though, does it? That kid in there… hell, that’s the problem right there. Hael is a kid. Cloistered until she set off for some rainforest, not knowing anything of the real world, finds a kid as dumb as her and now here we are.”

He glanced towards the door of the waiting room and, seemingly, across the hallway and into the hospital room where his young cousin labored alone. 

“You know what he’s thinking, right?” Dean asked the other man, looking down at Castiel as he spoke.

Gabriel sighed and nodded, tossing his half-eaten lollipop into an empty coffee cup on the table littered with the detritus of hours spent fretting and waiting.

“Same thing I am, Dean-o,” Gabriel told him. “He’s thinking that maybe if he’d stayed behind, he could have kept her safe.”

 

Castiel awoke to the sound of Hael crying. It was a horrible sound, screams of pain mingled with the pitiable sobs of a child thrust forth into the real world all too son, and all too painfully. He started, sitting bolt upright and barely remembering for a moment that the world was years past the days he would wake to those cries and go running on bare feet to find a punished Hael, shaking with the sting of fresh welts on her back.

He took in two great gulping breaths of air and nearly bolted from where he sat; a warm calming hand on his shoulder and then snaked around his waist stopped him and stilled the tremble that had already began working up his spine.

“You’re safe,” a familiar voice intoned, warm breath on his ear. “You’re safe, Cas. You’re with me and you’re safe.”

Castiel let out a shuddering breath and reached to grip Dean’s hand, pulling it up to hold it close against his chest. It wasn’t the first time he had woken this way, and it surely would not be the last, but the recent years had afforded him the comfort of the man at his side, who could calm and soothe him like nothing else ever had. He took another shaky breath, and then another, and after a moment felt his heart settle into a more even beat, breathing out a long deep breath when Dean pressed his lips to the back of Castiel’s neck.

“I should go to her,” Castiel murmured. He didn’t want to, not really; he didn’t want to see Hael like that, the bright and beautiful child of his memory marred by the hateful young women she had become. But beneath it all she was still family, still the little girl he’d pushed on a tire swing in the far gardens of his aunt’s estate and taught to ride a beaten up old bicycle he’d rescued from a shed. She was still his little Haely, and she was afraid, and alone.

“You should,” Dean agreed, both of them easing off the oddly soporific waiting room couch. They stood and stretched, Castiel pulling Dean into a tight embrace and holding it a beat longer than usual, needing that physical comfort before facing what waited in the room beyond the hall. 

“I’m going to make a couple calls while you’re in there, ok?” Dean said. He knew his presence would only upset the girl further, and he wouldn’t dare cause her any more stress in such a delicate time. 

Castiel nodded, knowing immediately why Dean chose to keep his distance. “Okay,” he agreed, and took a deep breath before heading towards the door.

“And Cas?” Dean said, causing the other man to pause in his retreat.

“Yes?” Castiel asked.

“We don’t really need to keep separate offices at the house, do we?” Dean asked. He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his wrinkled slacks and cocked his head to the side as he spoke. “I mean, we both have an office on campus and we barely use the ones at home. Don’t really need two. Just takin’ up one of the spare bedrooms when we could, you know. Find a better use.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://literatec.tumblr.com/), if you wish.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me in this 'verse. I've been blocked like crazy, but I'm trying!


	8. Chapter 8

Gabriel was a physician. He had gone through years of medical school, internships, and residencies. He had taken trips overseas to war-torn and disease-ridden lands, to work with men, women, and children who had seen only strife and sickness in their lives. He had seen children die in his arms from sickness that shouldn’t have needed more than a day’s rest to put down. Gabriel was a doctor, and he had seen the very worst the world had to offer.

Nothing he had seen the world over could have prepared him to see Hael in hard labor.

She was young, older than some who had been through the same, but still so very young to his eyes. Small of frame, pale and slight, and so very, very alone, and Gabriel, who had seen so much worse in his life, could barely stand it.

He hovered at the doorway to her birthing suit, while nurses and Dr. Rourke attended to her needs. He watched with shaking hands and a furrowed brow, thinking of the million and one things that could go wrong, but he didn’t approach.

He couldn’t.

He didn’t know how.

 

Castiel had been determined to see this through to the end with Hael, whether she wanted him there or not. There had been harsh words as he approached her, cruel and biting things that echoed the sentiments her mother had expressed when putting Castiel out of her home for the final time, but he ignored them, settling at her side and giving her his hand to hold.

She didn’t let go.

One of the nurses had found a hair tie some time earlier and helped Hael pull her long hair away from her face, tying it back into a messy bun. A few locks escaped and were plastered to her face with sweat, Castiel trying to smooth them away in a futile attempt to offer comfort.

“I can’t, I can’t do this,” Hael cried. There were tears streaming down her face, intermingled with the sweat of pain and exertion.

“You can, yes you can,” Castiel told her. He couldn’t imagine it, the physical pain she was experiencing coupled with the overwrought emotions of the situation. For someone so young to bear so great a burden seemed far too much; but he knew his family, knew the steely strength they could find when they needed it. The same strength he had found when it had been time for him to leave. He needed it then, and she needed it now.

“Hael, it’s time,” the doctor told her. “I need you to push.”

“You can do this, Haely,” Castiel said, voice in a fierce whisper meant only for her ears. “You can do this. You are so strong, Hael, you can do this.”

“How could he leave?” Hael responded, turning her head to face her cousin, cheeks red, eyes bright and glassy. “How could Alfie die and leave me to do this all alone?”

Castiel was crying. It wasn’t a young woman in that hospital bed, a cold and damning clone of her militantly religious mother, but the child he remembered from his youth. The happy, spritely little girl that had made his last few years in his aunt’s home bearable, the little girl who split her tights and skinned her knees and ran to her young cousin for comfort instead of her mother. And she was in such pain.

“He didn’t want to leave you, baby, you know that,” Castiel counseled, pressing a kiss to her sweaty brow. “These things just happen, don’t they? But we’re here now and you’re not alone, me and Gabe and Dean… you just hold on tight, hold my hand, and listen to the doctor. You can do this Hael, I know you can.”

Hael gripped his hand tighter as the doctor told her to push once again. He could feel the stress radiating through her entire body, his free arm around her shoulders as Hael leaned forward and screamed with the strain of her labor.

“You’re doing great, Hael, just great,” the doctor told her, looking up to smile as reassuringly as she could. “The baby is crowning, you’re doing beautifully. Give me another big push now, one more great big push, go on.”

The sob that ripped from Hael’s lips seemed almost unearthly and Castiel squeezed his eyes shut, holding her tightly and feeling the shudders racking through her as she gave the last push. He kept his eyes shut, even as Hael began to relax and fall back against the bed and the cries of a newborn child began to echo in the birthing suite.

“You did wonderfully, Hael,” he heard the doctor say. “You have a beautiful baby boy!”

Castiel opened his eyes, watched as the child was quickly cleaned and wrapped in hospital issue swaddling blanket, a tiny plastic bracelet snapped around his little wrist. He was small, smaller than most newborns that Castiel had seen, but he wasn’t surprised; Hael was small of frame herself, and he was her first child, after all.

“Let me see him,” Hael said, voice faint and tired. “Please, let me see him.”

Dr. Rourke smiled and nodded to the nurse, who moved quickly to carry the tiny infant to his mother’s arms. Hael’s eyes were wide and almost disbelieving, looking down at the child in her arms who had already stopped crying and had opened his eyes, looking up at his mother with sleepy interest. 

“Hello,” Hael said with a shaky voice, tears streaming down her face. “Hello, baby,” she said, and ran a gently finger over his shock of blonde hair. 

Castiel had begun to inch away, certain that Hael would want him gone as soon as she gave it much thought, but she turned to him and smiled.

“Look, Castiel,” she said, still crying even through her smile. “Look at him. He’s perfect!”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Expect to do one more short and one more chapter fic in this series, at some point :)

The size and layout of the backyard hadn’t been much of a selling point for Dean and Castiel when they purchased their home, but as the first summer after Hael and Gabriel’s impromptu visit faded into winter and then back again, Dean had begun to see the merit in the wide green lawn and stone patio behind his home. There was room for a small garden and a picnic table, and of course an outdoor grill. 

The days had grown long and hot fairly quickly that year, and alreadyd in early June it was warm enough to draw sweat from his brow as he sat out in the sun, book open in hand as he made annotations for the Romanticism course he was teaching for the summer semester. He’d gotten light duty for the summer that year, owing to some departmental funding issues, but he wasn’t terribly bothered; he and Castiel had a decent nest egg in their savings and it gave him time to spend at home, just enjoying the days off. Castiel himself was teaching two summer courses, though they were held exclusively online and he rarely had to venture to campus. All in all, they had a few months of relaxation ahead of them.

Dean highlighted another stanza he wished to discuss with his class that coming Thursday and then set his book down, replacing it in his hand with a cold glass of lemonade, beads of condensation already dampening the little corkboard coaster Castiel insisted he use on their wooden patio table. The wind sent a soft gust to rustle the leaves of the two tall trees in their yard, drawing a chittering from the family of squirrels that had set up house there the winter before. Birds were tweeting back and forth on the wooden fenceposts and there was the gentle hum of insects in the air, all eclipsed by the childish shouts of glee coming from the toddler running circles through the yard.

Dean had pulled out an old sprinkler earlier that afternoon, and the little boy had yet to tire of jumping back and forth through the rotating spray of cool water, shouting and laughing happily everytime he received another dousing from the splash. His little feet were muddy and stuck with bits of grass, but it was nothing a bath wouldn’t take care of later that evening; he turned towards Dean and grinned, blonde hair even brighter in the sun and little swim trunks heavy with water hanging low beneath a pudgy belly. He stood in place, waiting for the sprinkler to turn his way again and letting loose a great peal of joyful laughter when it turned to soak him once again, before sprinting around the yard and back again.

Unable to keep from smiling at the scene, Dean took a gulp from his drink and turned away only a moment to retrieve his book, thumbing to page that the image before him had called to mind, and skimming briefly over the printed words before deciding to highlight them as well.

“When the voices of children are heard on the green /And laughing is heard on the hill,” the page read, “My heart is at rest within my breast / And everything else is still”*. Damned if it wasn’t perfect for the day, Dean thought.

“Fitting,” a voice mused from behind him, and Dean glanced up just in time for Castiel to lean down and press a kiss to his forehead. 

“You need more sun,” Dean chided him with a wink; he had been poking fun at his love’s slightly pallid complexion for a week or so, blaming his need to sit in front of his laptop screen and wait for discussion responses from his students to a manic degree. 

Castiel smirked, taking a seat at the table across from Dean and setting down a plate of fresh fruit he had sliced in the kitchen just before coming out, alongside a cold juice box for the little boy once he tired out.

“Whatever you say,” he countered. “Either way, students still think I’m hotter than you.”

Dean picked up a strawberry from the plate and lobbed it at the other man’s head; Castiel easily avoided the fruity projectile and it landed in the grass behind him, where it was quickly snapped up by a squirrel.

 

Another shout of joy from the sprinkler drew their attention and both men smiled to see the little boy run with gleeful shrieks through the water, hands thrown up in the air.

“I’m coming, Alfie!” Hael warned gayly, hopping over the sprinkler herself in a pair of cut-off denim shorts over a modest one-piece swimsuit. “Mommy’s coming! Mommy’s gonna get you!”

Alfie laughed and ran and shouted, having the time of his life, even as he was scooped up in his mothers arms and run back and forth over the sprinkler’s spray, both laughing even as they were soaked through.

The only one grinning harder at the scene, Dean thought, had to be Castiel.

 

The time had been good for Hael. Seeing her now, it was hard for Dean to believe she was the same angry young woman who had unexpectedly appeared at his kitchen table one wintry night. It hadn’t been easy, taking her into their home even as she was still so frightened and carried with her the weight of her mother’s prejudice, but Dean had known the moment that Castiel had taken his young cousin’s hand that they could never turn her away.

“I don’t understand,” she had confessed to Dean, late one night when little Alfie was only a few months old and still fussing into the wee hours of the morning. Dean had been having a few sleepless nights himself, spurred on mostly by worry over an impending heart surgery for his father that had thankfully been successful. He and Hael seemed to cross paths most nights, cups of tea in hand as they sat in uncomfortable silence in the kitchen, until she had finally begun to speak.

“I don’t understand how someone meant to be so righteous and true could be so cruel,” Hael had confessed, tears shining in her eyes, big and blue and so much like Castiel’s that it all but broke Dean’s heart to see them. “Mother... she would have me on the street. She would have her grandson left with nothing.”

As Castiel had expected, word of the birth of her grandson -- Sammandriel Alfred, called Alfie after his father -- had reached his Aunt Naomi not long after little Alfie had made his way into the world, and she had immediately tried to take action, expelling Hael from the family trust, revoking her health insurance, and attempting to stop the eventual payout of her trust fund. Dean had been smart in calling Bobby and Sam the night the little boy was born, setting into motion everything it would take to keep Naomi from interfering.

When her birthday had arrived, Hael had accessed her trust just enough to purchase things that she needed for herself and her son, and put the rest into a new trust held exclusively for Alfie once he matured. She had wanted to give something to Dean and Castiel for taking them in -- she had moved into Castiel’s old home office, and Dean’s had become Alfie’s nursery -- but they had stubbornly refused, not allowing her even to take a part time job as she started at the university. 

She was family, they had explained, and they would provide for her and Alfie until she got herself on her feet.

“Some people can’t get past some of the stuff them believe,” Dean had told her with a shrug. “Can’t see the truth outside of the lies they lived by.”

“And you,” Hael had told him, shaking her head and gently bouncing the baby in her arms. “Mother said you were tantamount to the Devil himself, but I can’t… I don’t… how can someone so generous and kind be evil?”

Dean chuckled softly. “You’re making me blush, kid,” he had said, staring down into his mug of peppermint tea.

“I mean it, Dean,” Hael told him, addressing him by name for one of the first times since they had met. “I don’t understand it. I… I think sometimes, maybe, some of the things Mother said… they just couldn’t be true, could they? Not when she could be so cruel. Not when someone she would so readily damn would… would take me in as family.”

Dean had shrugged. “Well, you are family,” he said simply. “And we take care of our own.”

 

Hael’s world had changed that night, and with it, she had changed. It had started in small, simple ways; no more preaching at him and Castiel, no more ‘abomination’ this or that. She began to relax, enjoying her time with her son and realizing that something so sweet, a child created out of love, couldn’t really be damning. She began to watch Castiel with Dean and see the happiness they shared, seeing that it hurt no one and couldn’t really be any sort of evil, could it?

Castiel had worked with the finance department at the university and convinced them to extend the same tuition waiver to Hael as they would if she were his daughter and not an extended relation; she was majoring in mathematics and had quite a brilliant mind for it. Castiel and Dean were of the mind that she would be teaching in a university herself one day.

Hael had cut her hair short, just above her shoulders, and her formality of speech and dress began to drop away. Dean had found her an on-campus group that she began to attend, full of people who had been raised in less than stellar households now trying to cope with the real world; it seemed to do her a world of good, and just that prior Spring she had found a small liberal church not far from their home to have Alfie baptized. She and the boy attended services regularly, sometimes with Castiel and Dean in tow.

 

Hael and Alfie had crept closer to the patio and she the boy on his feet, grinning slyly as she called, “Go on, baby, go get’im!”

Alfie let out another shrieking laugh and ran straight for Dean, quickly climbing up on his lap and soaking him through, shaking his mop of blonde hair to send droplets of water flying. Dean could only laugh in response, glancing over to Castiel smiling at them both.

The thought occurred to him that once upon a time, he had thought he had reached his zenith. Career advancement and colleague accolades had been his peak, Dean had assumed, the best night of his life a simple campus party and some good fortune in publishing. But holding the squirming toddler in his arms, laughing at the boy’s attempts to nuzzle against him and get him even wetter, and watching the way Castiel grinned, it made Dean stop and think.

After all, this was a pretty good day too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * First stanza of _Nurse's Song_ , William Blake.


End file.
